In the same way that a street address represents a location in the physical world, a domain name can be used to represent a location on the Internet. In the physical world, one relies on both street addresses and the postal system to send information back and forth between individuals and organizations. On the Internet, one relies on the Domain Name System (DNS) to translate domain names into Internet addresses.
In general, names are thought of as discrete emblems used to establish or designate identity; addresses are thought of as emblems designating location. Domain names might seem to be unusual because they appear to be both names and addresses; they both locate and identify Internet resources. Yet people's personal names, for example, establish identity, and such identifiers travel with the individual rather than changing when the person changes location. Other attributes of an individual such as handwriting, fingerprints, DNA, and face recognition may also serve to identify and help remember the individuality of a person. Street addresses or geographic names, by contrast, are more static in order to establish location. Yet such addresses and geographic names also serve to identify the physical place, differentiating it from other places.
Geographic names of all kinds—street addresses, zip codes, counties—are in fact overlays on an unchanging numerical system of longitude and latitude, which is a universally recognized designator and locator for a particular place on the earth's surface. In this sense, geographic names are much like Internet domain names, which are an overlay of Internet address number designations.
Name space is a set of names in which all names are unique. Address space is a set of addresses in which all addresses are unique. Image space is a set of images in which all images are unique. Names are commonly used as mnemonic devices to help remember information. For instance, names are used to remember telephone numbers, and domain names are used to remember Internet addresses. A recent area of worldwide concern is the allocation of name space on the Internet.
The Internet is a vast computer network having many smaller networks that span the world. A network provides a distributed communicating system of computers that are interconnected by various electronic communication links and computer software protocols. Because of the Internet's distributed and open network architecture, it is possible to transfer data from one computer to any other computer worldwide. In 1991, the World-Wide-Web (WWW or Web) revolutionized the way information is managed and distributed.
The Web is based on the concept of hypertext and a transfer method known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which is designed to run primarily over a Transmission Control Protocol/lnternet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection that employs a standard Internet setup. A server computer may provide the data and a client computer may display or process it. TCP may then convert messages into streams of packets at the source, then reassemble them back into messages at the destination. Internet Protocol (IP) handles addressing, seeing to it that packets are routed across multiple nodes and even across multiple networks with multiple standards. HTTP protocol permits client systems connected to the Internet to access independent and geographically scattered server systems also connected to the Internet.
Client side browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and/or Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) provide graphical user interface (GUI) based client applications that implement the client side portion of the HTTP protocol. One format for information transfer is to create documents using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML pages are made up of standard text as well as formatting codes that indicate how the page should be displayed. The client side browser reads these codes in order to display the page. A web page may be static and requires no variables to display information or link to other predetermined web pages. A web page is dynamic when arguments are passed which are either hidden in the web page or entered from a client browser to supply the necessary inputs displayed on the web page. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard for running external programs from a web server. CGI specifies how to pass arguments to the executing program as part of the HTTP server request. Commonly, a CGI script may take the name and value arguments from an input form of a first web page which is be used as a query to access a database server and generate an HTML web page with customized data results as output that is passed back to the client browser for display.
The Web is a means of accessing information on the Internet that allows a user to “surf the web” and navigate the Internet resources intuitively, without technical knowledge. The Web dispenses with command-line utilities, which typically require a user to transmit sets of commands to communicate with an Internet server. Instead, the Web is made up of millions of interconnected web pages, or documents, which may be displayed on a computer monitor. Hosts running special servers provide the Web pages. Software that runs these Web servers is relatively simple and is available on a wide range of computer platforms including PC's. Equally available is a form of client software, known as a Web browser, which is used to display Web pages as well as traditional non-Web files on the client system.
A network resource identifier such as a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact string of characters for identifying an abstract or physical resource. URIs are the generic set of all names and addresses that refer to objects on the Internet. URIs that refer to objects accessed with existing protocols are known as Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). A URL is the address of a file accessible on the Internet. The URL contains the name of the protocol required to access the resource, a domain name, or IP address that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on the computer. For example the URL “http://www.example.com/index.html”, where “http” is the scheme or protocol, “www.example.com” is the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), and “index.html” is the filename located on the server.
Because an Internet address is a relatively long string of numbers (e.g., 31.41.59.26) that is difficult to remember, Internet users rely on domain names, memorable and sometimes catchy words corresponding to these numbers, in order to use electronic mail (e-mail) and to connect to Internet sites on the Web. The Domain Name System (DNS) is a set of protocols and services on a network that allows users to utilize domain names when looking for other hosts (e.g., computers) on the network. The DNS is composed of a distributed database of names. The names in the DNS database establish a logical tree structure called the domain name space. Each node or domain in the domain name space is named and may contain subdomains. Domains and subdomains are grouped into zones to allow for distributed administration of the name space.
There is a particular increase in articles and publications emphasizing the importance of domain name space and the perceived shortage of “.com” names. References have been made that NASA is seeking authorization for “.mars” as an extension of terrestrial geography. Speaking on the opening day of the annual Internet Society (ISOC) conference in Geneva on Jul. 22, 1998, Vint Cerf, a founding President of ISOC, said the domain name debate should also encompass “.earth” or “.mars” because that's where real-time science data is going to travel from in the not-too-distant future. He said, “The idea is to take the interplanetary Internet design and make it a part of the infrastructure of the Mars mission.”
Ironically that same day, an on-line Wired News article reports that Netword LLC has sued Centraal Corp. for patent infringement on its Internet keyword system. The system uses plain language instead of URLs to retrieve Web addresses. The technology lets companies and site owners register simple keywords that browsers can use to access Web sites. “Chevy,” for example, could be used as an alias to replace the lengthier Web address “http://www.chevrolet.com”. The system works using a client browser plug-in. U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,906 issued on Jun. 9, 1998, by Edelstein et al. and assigned to Netword LLC, entitled, “Universal electronic resource denotation, request and delivery system” is a system that works by users guessing a short mnemonic alias without the user being required to know the Web page's URL.
A system or process is typically modeled by defining the elements or components within such a system and further defining the corresponding relationships of such elements with each other and/or the relationships of such elements to other systems and their respective elements. Elements or components are most typically defined as objects having properties or functions associated with such objects. Objects are distinguished by assigning a unique identifier for each object creating an object space. Identifiers are symbols, markings, characters, names, or labels used for distinguishing, tracking, tagging, coding, sorting, routing, locating, linking, and organizing any combination of objects, resources, and addresses of a given system or across multiple systems. Indicia are identifiers used for referencing objects of physical or abstract resources.
An identifier is static and has a persistence that usually takes the form of a name or label to help people remember and commonly agree upon the identification of an object for a given system. In effect, for any given object space there is typically defined an associated naming system. Each naming system may include one or more namespaces. In some naming systems, identifiers may be allocated, assigned, reserved, subscribed, or registered to an object or entity such as an individual or organization. Examples of such registered identifiers include Social Security Numbers (SSN), license plate numbers, Universal Product Codes (UPC), International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), trademarks, tradenames, company names, stock symbols, broadcast station call letters, telephone numbers, domain names, keywords, FDNs, screen names, user names, etc.
Each naming system has respectively originated and evolved for its own reasons, in its own way and in its own time. Identifiers take on meaning only from within its own naming system and generally remains exclusive to other naming systems. In recent years, identifiers are beginning to persist across other naming systems. For instance, there is a recent correlation between telephone numbers and trademarks. During the early 1970's, as 1-800 toll free numbers were introduced, industry recognized and extended the use of mnemonics for commercial advertising and name branding. During the 1980's, 1-800 names were popularized to the point where brokers would buy names with the hope of selling or leasing the 1-800 names from their growing portfolio. In fact, courts have almost unanimously held that telephone mnemonics may be protected as trademarks.
Another cited patent that relies on a translation database to retrieve URLs and access resources. U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,776 issued on Sep. 22, 1998 by Gifford, entitled, “Method of providing internet pages by mapping telephone number provided by client to URL and returning the same in a redirect command by server” allows a user to access a hypertext page by providing a conventional telephone number or other descriptor. The server maps such a telephone number or descriptor to a target page identifier using a translation database and automatically directs the client to retrieve the desired page.
There are other methods for locating resources such as image recognition, for example. U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,223 issued on Oct. 21, 1997 by Cooper, et al., entitled, “Method and system for labeling a document for storage, manipulation, and retrieval” establishes a relationship between an arbitrary, image domain file label and a computer recognizable text domain file name for the file. The arbitrary, image domain file label facilitates the meaningful naming of a file for storage when a keyboard or other typical text entry apparatus is unavailable.
Something most individuals have in common is having a face. A face with eyes, a nose and a mouth. All faces look a little different from each other. Different facial features help distinguish one face from another. Facial features help most people recognize a face that they have seen before. Facial features in a sense are information for people to recognize other people's face. What is surrounding ones face is recognized also, for instance, picture a man on a sunny day in front of a record store named “Vinyl Press” and he is wearing a blue suit and carrying a drum. You hear an audio recording of his drum music or you see a video being played on a TV screen. You see his face brighten up emotionally when a girl playing a guitar walks by. All the information around that face mixed with the emotion expressed in that face help in the recognition of said face.
The alphanumeric keys located on any typewriter or keyboard are used to create character images. Large groups of people everyday use character images every day to express an emotion. Character images are recognized as images to most people that view them. A character image that reflects an emotion a human being is feeling is called an Emoticon. Other examples of character images are, B-1 and :-1.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,383 issued on May 16, 2000 by Skelly, entitled, “Method and system for selecting an emotional appearance and prosody for a graphical character” enables the user to select an emotion for a graphical character and intensity of the emotion to be reflected in the appearance of the character by using an input device. For instance, Microsoft Office (a well-known word processing program) may automatically turn a colon, hyphen, close parentheses J into a happy face, J. So does AOL Instant Messenger (a well-known communication program).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,069,622 issued on May 30, 2000 by Kurlander, entitled, “Method and system for generating comic panels” discloses how an emoticon in a communication environment can relay communication and emotion within a series of comic panels. The comic generation system receives an interaction event and generates a comic panel. Examples of interaction events include text input (e.g., a character image) by a user and selection of gestures and expressions by a user.
Character images and emoticons may also be used in Virtual Reality. A virtual environment may be generated from a programming language called, Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML). In a virtual environment everything looks 3D and as if one is existing in it. Another virtual environment which is very popular today is the 3D gaming environment. Such games that are popular today are Quake and Dune where real people play an interactive game off or online. In a virtual environment or interactive game real people take on a graphic presence known as an avatar. Most avatars have a face. In essence a face of an avatar is almost the same as a face of an emoticon in which they both exist in a computer based environment an are used to relay emotion and a message. They are vehicles for mnemonic information to the things we humans communicate and associate with.
A character image more particularly an emoticon is different then a lot of other symbols for its ability of being scanned and recognized by a multitude of devices and formats that exist.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,076,121 issued on Jun. 13, 2000 by Levine, entitled, “Method of network addressing and translation” discloses a system and method in a telephone network for assigning a directory number to each user, and functional property code(s) to each device a user employs. The same directory number is then used to reach the user, whereby the system will automatically use the functional property code of each device to reach the user's voice line, cellular line, fax line, data line or other telephone network device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,738 issued on Nov. 28, 2000 by Call, entitled, “Methods and apparatus for disseminating product information via the internet using universal product codes” receives Internet request messages containing all or part of a universal product code and returns the Internet address at which information about the identified product, or the manufacturer of that product, may be obtained.
This supports the need for a system that labels products on a computer network. There are other devices that can communicate on these infrastructures and recognize a symbol include, systems that work with imagery and text.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,065 issued on Aug. 12, 1986 by Beg, et al., entitled, “Image processing-system” discloses an encoder that receives digital level signals and generates an indicator, in the histogram mode, of the bin to which the picture elements currently being examined belongs. In the feature-identification mode, the encoder generates an indication of whether the current picture element has the selected feature. These indications that the encoder produces will be referred to in this specification as “code signals,” and the general purpose of the encoder can thus be described as being to provide a correspondence between level signals and code signals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,525 issued on Aug. 3, 1999 by Makhoul, et al., entitled, “Language-independent and segmentation-free optical character recognition system and method” discloses a unique feature extraction approach which represents two dimensional data relating to OCR as one independent variable (specifically the position within a line of text in the direction of the line) so that the same CSR technology based on HMMs can be adapted in a straightforward manner to recognize optical characters.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,909,211 issued on Jun. 1, 1999 by Combs, et al., entitled, “Touch pad overlay driven computer system” discloses a pressure sensitive touch pad and an overlay depicting a pattern, e.g., a typewriter keyboard, for providing specific data characteristics of the pattern to a host computer and to a specific application program.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,570,235 issued on Feb. 11, 1986 by Kerdoncuff, et al., entitled, “Digital receiver of multi-frequency signals with frequency recognition device” discloses digital frequency recognition device for a receiver of multi-frequency PCM signals, for the signaling between automatic telephone exchanges or between subscribers and telephone exchanges.
Other markings such as ink stamps and the like may also be used to encode identifiers within images and be printed, scanned and translated to a directory location on a computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,492,162 issued on Jan. 8, 1985 by Nettesheim, et al., entitled, “Type band ink stamp” discloses an ink stamp having movable type bands, however there is no mention of using encoded identifiers to access resources.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,699 issued on Feb. 18, 1986 by Herzog, et al., entitled, “Optical mark recognition for controlling input devices, hosts, and output devices” discloses a document distribution network having one or more input work stations, a linking network with one or more nodes and one or more output work stations, is controlled by a job control sheet. The job control sheet is partitioned into a plurality of control zones. Each zone contains dedicated marked sense information for controlling the input work stations, the network nodes and the output work stations.
Other devices may also be adapted for use in image recognition and network resource translation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,166,735 issued on Dec. 26, 2000 by Dom, et al., entitled, “Video story board user interface for selective downloading and displaying of desired portions of remote-stored video data objects” discloses a system and method for supporting video browsing over a communication network such as the Internet/World Wide Web. A GUI is provided through a client software tool such as a Web browser. A client/user selects a video data object stored at a remote server. A set of points within the object are displayed at the client's graphical user interface display, as representations, preferably thumbnail images, of the points within the object.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,158 issued on Jul. 21, 1987 by Ito, et al., entitled, “Guidance device for manipulation of machine” discloses a machine having a control panel with a plurality of keys controlling various functions. A display exhibits prompts as to the proper operation of the machine. An operator can learn the functions of the keys by manipulating them and observing the resulting prompts.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,102 issued on Jan. 4, 2000 by Shachar, et al., entitled, “System using machine-readable printed symbols created from encoded data resource specifiers to establish connection to data resource on data communications network” discloses how access to data resources on data communications networks is simplified by encoding data resource identifiers into a machine-readable printed symbol which can be scanned into a computer-based data communications terminal. The machine-readable printed symbol can be a bar code or in the form obtainable with any other printed encoding technology which encodes digital information in printed form so that it can be electronically read.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,887 issued on May 6, 1980 by Burns, entitled, “Data telecommunications terminal” discloses a portable, hand-held data telecommunications terminal for use with a telephone system having a memory for storing data, a signal generator for generating signals corresponding to the data, a signal coupling device connected to the signal generator for coupling the signals to the telephone system, a keyboard, a microprocessor, and a self-contained power supply. Data is entered into the memory from the keyboard device so that the data is available at a future time, to be coupled to the telephone system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,982,303 issued on Nov. 9, 1999 by Smith, entitled, “Method for entering alpha-numeric data” discloses a method for transforming ordered pairs of keystrokes entered on a keypad with eight or more keys into a full complement of alpha-numeric characters, as might be enterable from a computer keyboard. Examples of input devices include a numeric keypad, a telephone keypad, and a “joystick.” The method employs an alphabet in which each character is represented by a two-stroke pictographic figure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,095 issued on Oct. 10, 2000 by Low, et al., entitled, “Method of accessing a target entity over a communications network” discloses a telephone network and the target entity is a called party; in this case, the number string comprises a dialed number and the retrieved communication data is a URI indicative of the location on the Internet of a current telephone number for the target party, the URI once retrieve being used to access the current telephone number over the Internet for use in setting up a call to the target party.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,819 issued on Feb. 9, 1999 by Knowles, et al., entitled, “Internet-based system and method for tracking objects bearing URL-encoded bar code symbols” discloses a Web-based package routing, tracking and delivering system and method that uses URL/ZIP-CODE encoded bar code symbols on parcels and packages.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,101,274 issued on Aug. 8, 2000 by Pizano, et al., entitled, “Method and apparatus for detecting and interpreting textual captions in digital video signals” discloses a computer-implemented method for the identification and interpretation of text captions in an encoded video stream of digital video signals comprises sampling by selecting frames for video analysis, decoding by converting each of frames selected into a digitized color image, performing edge detection for generating a grey scale image, binarizing by converting the grey scale image into a bi-level image by means of a thresholding operation, compressing groups of consecutive pixel values in the binary image, mapping the consecutive pixel values into a binary value, and separating groups of connected pixels and determining whether they are likely to be part of a text region in the image or not.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,525 issued on Dec. 7, 1999 by Krishnaswamy, et al., entitled, “Method for video telephony over a hybrid network” discloses how telephone calls, data and other multimedia information including video, audio and data may be routed through a switched network which includes transfer of information across the internet. Users can transmit video, audio and data communications of designated quality over the Internet to other registered video telephony users. Users can manage more aspects of a network than previously possible, and control network activities from a central site.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,167 issued on May 30, 2000 by Lian, et al., entitled, “Hierarchical method and system for object-based audiovisual descriptive tagging of images for information retrieval, editing, and manipulation” discloses selecting an object of interest in an image with an object-based selection mechanism, generating a hierarchical data structure for the image and for associating auxiliary information with the image, and transmitting/storing the image and the hierarchical data structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,555 issued on Jan. 2, 2001 by Yamamoto, entitled, “System and methods for communicating through computer animated images” discloses a method and system for generating an animation sequence for a live character during communication. In response to a performer's voice and other inputs, the animation sequence of the character is generated on a real-time basis and approximates human speech. The animated character is capable of expressing certain predetermined states of mind such as happy, angry and surprised. In addition, the animated character is also capable of approximating natural movements associated with speech
U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,329 issued on May 4, 1999 by Kito, entitled, “Data processing terminal which determines a type of an external device” discloses a data processing terminal capable of determining the type of an external device such as a bar code reader connected thereto and of converting a control command in a predetermined format into one in another format, so that the data processing terminal can employ a single program to control bar code readers which use different command systems.
All of the above formats and devices open up a device based communication network. The lack of web addresses that can fairly relay ones element of character or service could be fixed if all said prior art worked together on a system designed for the use of imagery as addresses.
There is a strong need for an addressing system that is recognized by machine, as well as by most humans. There is a strong need for a new gateway for images and media to be addressed on a computer and communication network. The addressing system today does not provide full use of name space. Image space is a missing link for all said inventions to work simultaneously and harmoniously.
There is an increasing need to offer other alternatives of recognition to help remember an online destination. Accordingly, in light of the above, there is a strong need in the art for a method, product, and apparatus for requesting a resource from an identifier having a character image.